7 The argument at Langford Court – The most reliable account of the dinner is in Inez Holden’s diaries, reprinted in Crick, pp. 429–30.
8 “an amusing evening” – Crick, p. 430.
9 “solve all the ills” – Orwell, “The Rediscovery of Europe”, The Listener, March 19, 1942, CW XIII, 1014, p. 213.
10 “foolish generalisations” – H. G. Wells letter to The Listener, April 9, 1942, ibid., p. 218.
11 “I don’t say that at all” – Quoted in Sherbone, p. 333.
12 “two wasted years” – Orwell letter to Philip Rahv, December 9, 1943, CW XVI, 2390, p. 22.
13 “strange boring nightmare” – Orwell, “English Writing in Total War”, New Republic, July 14, 1941, CW XII, 831, p. 530.
14 “all complacent optimists” – H. V. Morton, I, James Blunt (Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1942), p. 58.
15 “Lord Murdoch and General Pointer do not exist” – Robin Maugham, The 1946 MS. (War Facts Press, 1943), p. 45.
16 “good flesh-creeper” – Orwell, “Review of Pamphlet Literature”, New States man and Nation, January 9, 1943, CW XIV, 1807, p. 301.
17 “Only the mentally dead” – Orwell, “London Letter”, Partisan Review, March – April 1941, CW XII, 740, p. 355.
18 “We must remember” – Connolly, The Condemned Playground, p. 273. “the practice of lying” – Orwell, Review of An Epic of the Gestapo by Sir Paul Dukes, Tribune, September 13, 1940, CW XII, 686, p. 258.
19 “so unspeakable” – Orwell, Review of The Lights Go Down by Erika Mann, Tribune, August 23, 1940, CW XII, 676, p. 238.
20 “the horrible political jungle” – Orwell, Review of Never Come Back by John Mair, New Statesman and Nation, January 4, 1941, CW XII, 741, p. 359.
21 “expected to sell his honour” – Orwell, “Confessions of a Book Reviewer”, Tribune, May 3, 1946, CW XVIII, 2992, p. 302.
22 “easily bored” – Anthony Powell, To Keep the Ball Rolling Volume I: Infants of the Spring (Heinemann, 1976), p. 139.
23 “sadism” – Orwell, Time and Tide, August 9, 1941, CW XII, 840, p. 542.
24 “the nightmare atmosphere” – Orwell, Time and Tide, January 25, 1941, CW XII, 751, p. 375.
25 “a sort of concentrated essence” and “power to reassert” – Orwell, Time and Tide, December 21, 1940, CW XII, 727, p. 315.
26 “Rat Soup” – Orwell, “As I Please”, Tribune, December 31, 1943, CW XVI, 2398, p. 46.